Adam R. Little

The appellant sought statutory accident benefits after suffering a spinal cord hemorrhage and paraplegia following a stressful incident involving aggressive driving by motorcyclists and her driver.

The Licence Appeal Tribunal denied benefits, finding the incident did not meet the causation test for an 'accident' under the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule.

On appeal and judicial review, the Divisional Court quashed the decision, finding the Tribunal's analysis of the expert medical evidence unreasonable and its application of the intervening cause and dominant feature tests legally flawed.

The matter was remitted for a fresh hearing.

The applicant requested a reconsideration of a Tribunal decision that found she was not involved in an 'accident' under s. 3(1) of the Schedule when her pre-existing spinal AVM or aneurysm ruptured, causing paraplegia.

The applicant argued the Tribunal breached procedural fairness by allowing the respondent's expert to provide new opinion evidence at the hearing and erred in its causation analysis.

The adjudicator dismissed the request, finding no procedural unfairness as the expert's hearing evidence flowed from his reports and was subject to cross-examination.

The adjudicator also found no errors of fact or law in the Tribunal's intervening act and dominant feature analyses, concluding the pre-existing condition, not the vehicle, was the dominant feature of the injury.

The applicant sought statutory accident benefits after suffering lower limb paraplegia following a car ride where the driver engaged in aggressive driving to avoid a group of motorcyclists.

The applicant argued the stress of the incident caused a blood pressure spike that ruptured a spinal aneurysm.

The Tribunal found that the applicant was not involved in an 'accident' under s. 3(1) of the Schedule.

Preferring the respondent's medical evidence, the Tribunal concluded that the applicant's congenital spinal arteriovenous malformation (AVM) likely ruptured spontaneously, making the AVM the dominant feature and 'but for' cause of the impairment, with the vehicle merely being the location of the injury.

The appellant municipality appealed the dismissal of its motion for summary judgment.

The municipality argued the plaintiffs' action was statute-barred under s. 44(8)(b) of the Municipal Act, 2001, claiming the vehicle collided with a pole on an 'untravelled portion of a highway' (a median).

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, agreeing with the motion judge that determining whether the median was an untravelled portion of the highway required a trial to fully appreciate the evidence regarding reasonably foreseeable vehicular and pedestrian use.

The plaintiff brought a motion to strike two paragraphs from the defendants' Statement of Defence in an action for professional negligence against his insurance brokers.

The impugned paragraphs pleaded statistical data regarding the percentage of Ontario motorists who opted for $1,000,000 in third-party liability coverage.

The court found that the statistical data was not a material fact necessary for the defence and violated Rule 25.06(1) by pleading evidence rather than facts.

The motion was granted and the paragraphs were struck.

The appellants appealed a jury verdict in a fatal motor vehicle accident action, arguing the trial judge erred in his instructions on the duty of a driver entering a highway, failed to instruct the jury on the range of damages for loss of guidance, care, and companionship, and that the damages awarded were excessive.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, noting the appellants' failure to object to the jury charge at trial.

The Court held that while the damages awarded were high, they were not so inordinately high as to warrant appellate intervention.

The appellants appealed a trial judge's decision to invoke Rule 52.08 of the Rules of Civil Procedure to overturn a jury's finding of negligence against the respondent doctor.

The jury had found that the respondent's delay in transferring the appellant to another facility caused his paraplegia.

The Court of Appeal upheld the trial judge's decision, finding that while the respondent breached the standard of care by delaying the transfer, the appellants failed to adduce any expert evidence proving that an earlier transfer would have resulted in a timely diagnosis and surgery to prevent the paralysis.

The appeal was dismissed.

Following a finding that the insurer unreasonably withheld income replacement benefits, the arbitrator determined the quantum of the special award.

The arbitrator calculated the maximum permissible special award under section 282(10) of the Insurance Act to be $754,139.36, rejecting the insurer's argument that interest should only run from the date the withholding became unreasonable.

Applying the Persofsky framework, the arbitrator weighed the insurer's conduct, the length of delay, and awards in similar cases, ultimately ordering a lump sum special award of $40,000.

The applicant sought to vary an arbitrator's decision regarding income replacement benefits based on new accounting evidence, while the respondent insurer filed a notice of appeal.

The parties disputed whether the original arbitrator or a new appellate officer should hear the application for variation/revocation.

The Director's Delegate held that, given the pending appeal and the complexity of the accounting evidence, there was no advantage to having the original arbitrator hear the variation application.

The Delegate ordered that the application for variation/revocation be heard by the same appellate officer hearing the appeal, and stayed both proceedings pending the release of the arbitrator's decision on the quantum of a special award.